


Scandal, Season 5, Episode 12, Wild Card

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s05e12 Wild Card, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 14:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19111759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Scandal, Season 5, Episode 12, Wild Card

Open to Fitz and journalist Lilian Forster making out in a limo.

Abby pops in with important news, and though Fitz is his usual annoying self, Lillian doesn’t make a fuss about leaving.

As the scene progresses, I have two feelings towards Abby:

1\. She is awesome during this scene.

2\. Despite her being awesome, I still feel sorry for the poor woman.

Professionalism and cheerfulness despite the acknowledged awkwardness is her stance, but Fitz refuses to be an adult. She tries to explain why she unfortunately needs to know more about his personal, recreational time with women than either of them are comfortable with, and her reasons are completely legitimate.

His response is to insist on her being quiet before firmly ordering her out of the limo.

Over to Sally, she establishes it’s election season.

In a park, Olivia and Rowan have a scene. He’s proud of her for seizing power. Then, the subject of Jake comes up. He’s seeing someone, and Rowan would appreciate it if she would stop sleeping with him. She makes no promises.

Meanwhile, David is naked in bed with Liz, and this would be bad enough, but also Susan’s speech is playing on the TV. This isn’t enough to make the scene horribly unbearable, though, and so, Susan actually calls David to nervously invite him to spend some private time at her house with the assurance Casey will be with her grandma.

Accepting the invitation, he then lies to Liz about him and Susan going to see a movie. To reward him, kinkiness is implied as she orders him to turn over, and he hurriedly does.

Hi, awkward. Might I just say you’re really outdoing yourself with this episode?

I used to love David’s character. I’ll always be something of a David/Abby shipper, but I could have loved Susan/David so much, too. Instead, there’s this gross storyline to contend with.

At Liv’s, Jake and Huck have a run-in, and after the former is gone, Huck tries to make sure Olivia is sleeping with Jake for a good reason, like, say intel gathering, rather than just engaging in self-destructive behaviour by way of sleeping with the enemy.

Um, awkward, it’s always nice to see you, but I think The Tudors and Rome are going to get jealous if you don’t stop lavishing so much attention of this one episode.

Now, onto what was one of my favourite storylines. Some part of me knew it would be screwed up, but I still held onto to hope right up to the finale.

So, Cyrus and Ethan are in a hotel suite, and when this episode first aired, I knew this wasn’t Cyrus’s room due to the lack of any American flags. For someone who gives non-observant people a bad name with how non-observant I can be, I’m always proud of myself when I make a correct deduction based on noticing something.

Onto the point of this meeting: Ethan is giving Cyrus information of the candidate from last week, Frankie Vargas.

Basically, Vargas is one awesome human being.

Also, I so wanted Ethan to get a bigger storyline. He was a neat character.

After Ethan leaves, Cyrus calls out, “He’s gone.”

Tom comes out in a towel, and Cyrus has a mini-monologue ending with, “We’re making the next President of the United States.”

For anyone who doesn’t want to read my babbling about Tom/Cyrus, use ctrl+f and type in ‘anyway’.

Onto to my babbling: I love Tom/Cyrus so much, I wish there had been more, and I’m don’t hate how their storyline ended, but I obviously wish it’d been different.

I do hate the horrid mess that is Buckle Up, but I will spare everyone by not getting into that until I actually get to that episode.

Now, when it comes to the relationship, as of this scene, I don’t think Tom/Cyrus had actually gotten together yet. I do think Tom coming out in a towel was to serve two purposes:

1\. It was supposed to ping the viewer as somewhat odd and make them pay closer attention to the characters in future moments.

2\. Whatever the reason, and I do acknowledge it could be because he’s under orders, this is the start of Tom trying to seduce Cyrus. He likely could have gotten dressed in the bathroom, but he didn’t.

Furthermore, everything else in the scene leads me to believe there hasn’t been sex at this point. To start with, Cyrus seemed to have something of a headache at the beginning, and I doubt he would if he’d just had some good old-fashioned, stress-relieving sex. The bed is perfectly made, and finally, Cyrus’s reaction or, rather, lack thereof of Tom being in towel and his dismissive instruction for Tom to get dressed tell me he’s more focused on his scheme than really noticing he has a towel-clad young man in a hotel suite with him.

Anyway, the next scene involves Quinn and Charlie. Yay! They’re supposed to go on a road trip, but Charlie explains an old killing buddy of his needs someone to watch his kid.

Quinn rightfully wonders who, how, what, where, when, and why Charlie being asked to take care of a kid could happen in any sort of rational universe, but I love Charlie’s easily admittance, “I probably wasn’t the first call.”

He tells her she doesn’t have to help him, and her response is, “And leave you alone with a child? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

She leaves, and something about the way he carries the big suitcase out behind her gives the scene the perfect tone.

Oh, great, next is another post-coital scene involving Olivia and Jake. She brings up the fact he’s been cheating on his girlfriend (and possibly her, too, but I’m not sure how she views their relationship status), and he wants to know if she cares. Despite her claims to the contrary, she obviously does. I do give him props for assuring her he and his girlfriend are always safe, and therefore, she (Olivia) isn’t at risk for STDs.

Over at the White House, Abby steels herself before going into the Oval, and I love the silent reaction some uniformed guy has to this. Inside, Abby continues to try to be professional and reasonable, and Fitz continues to be neither. End result: He has a date with Lilian, and Abby still hasn’t fulfilled her job duties through absolutely no fault of her own.

In a restaurant, there’s the guy from last episode who yelled at Vargas. Tom slides into the seat across from him, and my love for Tom’s character doesn’t blind me to how utterly creepy he can be at times. This is one of those times. Eventually, it’s established the guy needs to go after Vargas to protect the life of his missing son.

I’m not so sure how well this works for me, mainly because most of the parents I know, they’d have one of three reactions: They’d either immediately be calling the police the first chance they got, or they’d straight up torture/try to kill Tom right then and there. And I mean all three of these things literally. Some of the parents I know, they’d either be too afraid not to call the police, or they’d be so angry, they’d attack in the middle of a public restaurant and, barring being stopped themselves, not stop until they either got answers or the person who threatened/hurt their kid was dead.

It’s established this guy, Wayne, is a white supremacist, and thankfully, none of the aforementioned parents I know are, but I’m still not sure I buy him just automatically being, ‘Okay, I’ll risk life imprisonment/possible death by going after a politician,’ rather than calling the police or doing something else. At the bare minimum, I’d expect a scene of him calling his ex-wife to make sure this is really real.

Moving on, Tom goes outside to call Cyrus. “We have our guy.”

“Good work, Tom,” Cyrus praises his golden retriever.

Hanging up, he comes across Abby. She vents, and he tunes her out.

At a mini-golf course, Uncle Charlie is giving lil’ Wayne advice. When Quinn quietly questions said advice, he admits, “Could be, I don’t play golf.” Heh.

Lil’ Wayne manages to get the ball into the hole thingy on his first try, and Quinn and Charlie excitedly coo over him.

Unfortunately, the next scene involves David and Liz. She wants sex, he’s trying to be the character certain viewers used to love, and in the end, they have sex.

On an only slightly better note, it’s awkward Pope dinner time. He’s all cheerful and talky about his super real retirement this time, and she’s having flashbacks to the intense confrontations they’ve had.

Over at Harrisburg, Wayne sets off the metal detector, and props to the actor, I actually felt so sorry for the character during this scene. His unadulterated relief when one of the security guards says it’s his belt and his wordless horror when Tom casually shoots three officers dead before handing the gun and cartilage (I think) to him invokes a visceral reaction in me.

It’s worth noting Tom has on gloves. I’d say he learned something from the time he left fingerprints when stealing the bacterial meningitis, but a later episode shows he was caught on camera near the building at the time of the shooting, so, maybe not.

Showing Vargas is as good as Ethan made him out to be, he’s calming down staffers as he tries to contact security. Wayne appears with the gun in hand.

In Cyrus’s office, the news of the shooting comes on, and I share Cyrus’s habit of talking to the TV.

Thankfully, this is one of the few habits I share with him.

Abby comes in, and Cyrus convinces her to give the news to Fitz by explaining this has nothing to do with Lilian Forster, and therefore, Fitz will be impressed by and grateful for her competence.

Unfortunately for Abby, Fitz and Lilian are currently engaged in half-naked activities on his bed. Hating everyone including herself but especially Fitz, Lillian, and Cyrus, Abby delivers the news.

Again, Lilian is reasonable. She points out this involves her job, too, before bouncing out, and Fitz continues to be less-than-reasonable.

On a semi-related note, someone made a post about Fitz being shamed for expressing his sexuality, whereas, the show probably wouldn’t treat a female character behaving in a similar manner in such a way. Personally, I don’t have a problem with later episodes where Fitz has a string of women going through his bedroom nor would I have a problem with a female character being shown to do the same thing. What I have a problem with is the fact, despite Abby bending over backwards to make it as easy as possible for him to do so, he consistently and snidely refuses to work with her and allow her to do her job.

She makes it clear she isn’t judging him, she finds this incredibly awkward, understands he does, too, and isn’t trying to stop him. She is trying to make sure him having a personal life doesn’t jeopardise him and/or the country’s wellbeing, and given both the Amanda Tanner situation and even the situation with Olivia, her concerns are more than valid.

They argue, and if not for the fact beating a POTUS with a pillow might be considered a treasonous offence, I would so love to see Abby grab one and attack. He brings up Olivia, uses misogynistic languages, and suggests Abby wants Olivia to be with him so that Abby can rise high.

Abby admits she’s not happy with the supposed love of Olivia’s life having causal sex, and I really wish she hadn’t. However, she is still completely in the right with how she’s been trying to handle things.

Back in Cyrus’s office, Ethan comes in, notes how weird it is this happened right after Cyrus had him look into Vargas, and goes on about how much of a monster Wayne is. Cyrus is the picture of innocence.

Meanwhile, Quinn, Charlie, and lil’ Wayne are in a hotel room. Lil’ Wayne is colouring when a news report with Wayne’s picture comes on, and coming into the room, Charlie quickly covers lil’ Wayne’s eyes, scolds Quinn, and starts changing the channels. He explains nothing is wrong but what was on was for grownups only, and Quinn is apologetic.

I love this scene for so many different reasons. One of them is, Quinn is naturally protective of the kid in her care, and therefore, she doesn’t question Charlie’s out-of-character overprotectiveness. However, if she did, it’s easy to imagine him explaining something along the lines of he’s not going to risk making the guy he’s killed people with angry at him for somehow letting the kid be traumatised under his watch.

As it is, Charlie finds Frozen playing, and Quinn loves how good he is with kids.

Over to yet another post-coital scene with Jake and Olivia.

Why, show? Why?

Jake gets a text about Harrisburg, and frankly, given this, I can understand his dismissiveness when Olivia tries to talk to him about Rowan. However, Olivia believes her daddy issues are more important than dead police officers and the unknown status of a governor.

Olivia, anytime I can, I will take your side over both Fitz and Jake, but Jake is so far in the right during this scene it’s almost unbelievable.

At Harrisburg, a staffer is being interviewed about how calm and brave Vargas was and how Wayne let everyone but Vargas go at Vargas’s insistence.

Meanwhile, there’s an awkward, pointless phone scene between Olivia and Abby.

In the Oval, Jake tells Fitz and Cyrus there are sharpshooters ready to take Wayne out, and as soon as he’s alone, Cyrus calls to yell at Tom. Tom is insistent he has this handled, and I love the character moment of Tom walking and scanning each room he passes.

Cyrus gives this response, “Failure is not one of your options. Nothing is impossible, so, you grab your ass, and you get creative, and you do what needs to be done. I don’t care what it is. I do not care how you do it. This is my day. I am the bride. So, you get me my hero moment, and if you don’t, you’ll go back into whatever box you came out of, and you’ll stay there.”

This definitely foreshadows their relationship, but again, I don’t think this is them actually being in one at the moment. I interpreted this as a sort of test for Tom. Cyrus is willing to let Tom work for him provided Tom can prove he’s up to the job, and Cyrus is telling him, ‘If you fail, I’m cutting you loose.’

I don’t know if Rowan and/or Fitz is still actively after Tom or not (or if Cyrus has been led to believe one or both are), but Tom is an enforcer, a henchman, rather than a truly active player on the board. If he isn’t following someone, he’s completely lost, and right now, it seems Cyrus is the only one willing to give him the stability and purpose he’s craving.

Over at OPA, Olivia confronts Huck, and he realises she truly is lost. Unfortunately, for all the times she’s saved him, he doesn’t know how to save her.

In Harrisburg, Vargas is being so much more reasonable and calm than most people I know, including me, would be with a gun pointed at them, and he visibly hits a nerve when he asks if Wayne has children and starts to talk about his own daughters.

The scene is briefly intercut with sharpshooters, and from a doorway, Tom is shown aiming his own gun.

On the news, it’s shown Vargas is shoot, Wayne turns, and when he does, Vargas tackles him to the ground.

Just so it’s clear: Tom shot Vargas, everyone including Vargas believes Wayne did it, and when Wayne turned towards the sound of the gunshot, Vargas took the opportunity to acte.

There’s a shot of an injured, shirtless Vargas coming out, and this transitions to a news report Abby and some other White House employees are watching. A woman comes in to shows Abby something.

The next scene has her yelling at Fitz about a picture of Lilian leaving the residence.

Shouldn’t someone be focusing on the fact a person was able to get close enough to get such a picture? Or are cameras so advanced today it would have been possible to get this picture from a far distance?

Abby finally truly explodes at him. She finishes with telling him to either put up or shut up, i.e. fire her or don’t but stop threatening to do so. Fitz finally starts acting like a grownup.

Over to David and Susan in bed, Liz calls. David only briefly talks to her before hanging up, and Liz looks subtly hurt and jealous.

Ugh. For all Portia de Rossi did a wonderful job on this show, I just can’t stand Liz’s character.

Back to Abby and Cyrus, she’s overwhelmed, and he suggests she use Vargas’s heroism to distract the press from the picture of Lilian leaving the residence. Incredibly thankful for the advice, she hurries off to do so.

There’s a scene of Charlie dropping lil’ Wayne off at a police station, and he’s nonplussed by lil’ Wayne’s adorable hug.

Then, Tom and Charlie talk on the phone. There’s a flashback establishing lil’ Wayne is Wayne’s son. Tom sighs in utter relief at being told a package is in the mail (presumably this means lil’ Wayne being dropped off, but who knows?), he and promises the money will be Charlie’s account within the hour.

I wish the show had done more with Tom & Charlie.

Meanwhile, Quinn comes into OPA, and I really feel for Huck. She happily goes on about Charlie making a great father someday, and Huck is just like, ‘Great, the only other sane one is Marcus, and I want to protect him like I couldn’t protect Quinn. How exactly did I end up being the sane one?’

Coming in, Olivia sets Huck and Quinn on Jake’s girlfriend, Vanessa Moss.

Before he killed her, too, was I the only one who found it creepy Jake killed two women: **Vanessa** Chandler and Shelby **Moss** , and then, he got involved with a woman who had both names? I really thought the internet would pounce over this, but I’ve never seen anything pointing out the connection.

Was it deliberate foreshadowing?

At the White House, Vargas has his photo op, and Abby introduces him and Cyrus. It’s a brief scene, but it’s powerful in its subtlety.

Fin.


End file.
